ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

Legend has it that the herring merchant’s daughter met the paper hanger’s seventh son during a school outing to the local tuba works. Soon after, they were cast out of the Garden of Eden and swam for forty days and forty nights, relying on the sidestroke, the fireman’s carry, the Heimlich maneuver, the half nelson and a very useful Latvian army pocket knife. With remarkable survival skills (honed during outings to the local tuba works), the youngsters survived on a diet of winter berries, twigs, and yeast soda; as foretold in local lore, the group Kalinka was born the following Spring and nurtured by a she-wolf. They galloped off on a white charger with a new map of the Old World and for several decades become thoroughly lost. But they have returned with grandeur on these recorded musical tracks. Horns, strings, double metal reeds, and cardboard have never sounded better. Claymation could not do them justice. Their wanderings led them through Budapest, Zagreb, Kovno, Kiev, Hamilton Beach, and that long overlooked metropolis of Paris where they performed at the Really French Festival. Although I have not met the musicians and several have defriended me, they appear well groomed and kempt. Make yourself an egg cream, sit back in your La-Z-Boy, put on the headphones and your puffiest down vest, eat a few small pebbles for ballast, and enjoy. --Lazlo Klinghofer, Croton-on-the-Hudson, NY